Prague Open | 21 - 25 mai 2014

Press release

2014 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour ready for more highlights in record-breaking year

The official FIVB Match Ball

Lausanne, Switzerland, January 22, 2014 – The FIVB
Beach Volleyball World Tour will once again be the centrepiece of the
international beach volleyball calendar in 2014.

From Long Beach in California to Shanghai in China
and many places in between players will compete for their share of the $10.2m
in prize money on offer from 10 Grand Slams, an inaugural FIVB Grand Slam Final
and 10 Open tournaments. The Grand Slams conclude
with the first ever FIVB Grand Slam Final, which will offer $500,000 in prize
money.

Last year the men’s tournament went down to the
wire as Latvia’s Janis Smedins and Aleksandrs Samoilovs held off the challenge
of Brazil’s Pedro Salgado and Bruno Schmidt at the Durban Open in December.
Brazilian fans did have something to celebrate though as Talita Antunes and
Taiana Lima won the women’s crown after dominating all season.

It means that both sides will be pushing hard to
retain their titles, while the depth of the teams chasing them grows ever
deeper.

Initially nine Grand Slam events were named, but in
recent weeks the total went up to the maximum of 10 when the Klagenfurt
returned as a host following a year off the Tour when the Austrian venue hosted
the CEV Beach Volleyball European Championships.

The lake-side resort will once again welcome the
crème-de-la-crème of the beach volleyball world as the Austrian city gets set
to host the ninth double-gender Beach Volleyball Grand Slam of the 2014 season
from July 29 to August 3.

This year will mark the 17th time that the Lake Worthersee site has hosted a stop on the
international circuit. With the exception of last season, the men’s World Tour
has stopped in Klagenfurt every year since 1997 and the women’s since 2001. In
2001 Klagenfurt also hosted the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships and this
year’s tournament will make Klagenfurt the most experienced host in the World
Tour’s history with 16 men’s and 12 women’s tournament to its name.

“Beach volleyball players and fans have come to
expect the best from Klagenfurt,” said FIVB President Dr. Ary S. Graça F°. “I
am proud to have the opportunity to now build on the previous successes of this
stop on the World Tour and look forward to once again experiencing all that this
excellent venue has to offer.”

“We are very happy to organise the A1 Beach
Volleyball Grand Slam in cooperation with the FIVB at Lake Worthersee in
Klagenfurt, Carinthia again this year,” said Hannes Jagerhofer of the ACTS
Group, the official promoter of the event.

“The dates for the Grand Slam are hereby confirmed
and official. We are sure that this year’s Grand Slam will exceed all the expectations
of all athletes, fans, sponsors and partners by offering an exceptional week in
Carinthia.”

Earlier in the month, the organisers of the Moscow
Grand Slam announced a date change to June 11 to 15 so as to accommodate
Klagenfurt’s inclusion in the 2014 beach volleyball calendar.

Also making a return to this year’s calendar is
Stavanger in Norway, another popular stop on the FIVB Beach Volleyball World
Tour. The unique dockside venue, which hosted the 2009 World Championships, was
last present on the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour in 2011, after 13 straight
seasons, but returns with a Grand Slam from June 24-29.

The ever-popular Stare Jablonki, returns as
a Grand Slam after hosting the World Championships last
year. The venue on the banks of Lake Mazury will now welcome beach
volleyball players and fans from August 19 to 24.

Through the year there are a host of familiar
cities hosting Grand Slams; Long Beach in the USA continues for a second season
after a successful debut in 2013, while The Hague in the Netherlands is
planning on spreading the tournament over four different cities in preparation
for their hosting of the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships in 2015.

There are also Grand Slams in Fortaleza in Brazil,
Berlin, Moscow and Gstaad in Switzerland before the FIVB Grand Slam Final.

The participants in the FIVB Grand Slam Final, for
which the location and dates are still to be confirmed, will be made up of the
top eight nations on the FIVB Beach Volleyball Grand Slam ranking with a
maximum quota of two teams per country, per gender. The newly conceived Grand Slam Final has yet to be assigned and the FIVB
is in negotiations with the promoters who have shown an interest in staging
this event.

Fuzhou in China, Anapa in Russia, Xiamen in China
and Phuket in Thailand will once again host Open tournaments with a further five
organised in Puerto Vallarta in Mexico, Czech capital Prague, Parana in Argentina
and Qatari capital Doha with Durban in South Africa once again bringing the
season to a close in December.

The newest addition to the 2014 beach volleyball calendar, the FIVB U17
Volleyball World Championships will be held in Bahia Banderas in Mexico,
providing yet another opportunity for young beach volleyball players to come to
the fore and gain international experience in their sport.

Polish town Myslowice will once again do the honours of hosting the FIVB Beach
Volleyball U23 World Championships while Oporto in Portugal will put its
previous experience of hosting the FIVB Beach Volleyball U19 World
Championships to practice yet again in 2014. Cypriot resort Larnaka will host
the U21 World Championships.

The second edition of the Youth Olympic Games are
set to take place from August 16 to 28, 2014 in the Chinese city of Nanjing and
it will be the first time beach volleyball will be included in the sporting
line-up.

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